Loyalty, Honour, A Willing Heart
by Miriel Tolkien
Summary: Her Tookish blood pushed her out her door alongside her cousin, but Amaranth Brandybuck's adventure was not exactly like Bilbo's. For one thing, he didn't fall in love along the way.
1. Chapter 1: An Unexpected Encounter

**I own nothing. Even Amaranth and her relatives are at least canonically named from the family tree appendix to Return of the King. Heads-up, this will probably be some eccentric munging of book and movie at my whim, and I cannot promise consistent updates, since I'm a part-time grad student with a full-time job. But I'm kind of happy with this idea and if anyone is still around for Kili/OC stories with an eye for canon and correct grammar, here's some more comfort food for you (and I've got a small stack of one-shots from back when the movies were still big news, if you want to stalk those between updates xD). Thanks for stopping by!**

"Amaranth!" Uncle Polo's voice echoed through the cozy hobbit hole. "Amaranth? Prisca needs help with her dress. Amaranth?"

Amaranth sighed as she shook back a stray curl from her sweaty face, not wanting to smear the dough on her hands into her hair. "Here, Uncle Polo. I'm in the kitchen."

"Ah, there you are, child." Her uncle shuffled into the warm kitchen and seated himself on a chair. "Prisca just realized she sewed the left sleeve closed at the shoulder, but she doesn't have time to take the stitches out. Could you help her?"

Laughing, Amaranth laid down the lump of dough she was shaping and wiped her hands on her apron before reaching to untie it. "Where did she learn to sew in the first place? She'll never finish her dress in time for the wedding at this rate. I hope Wilibald won't mind."

"I can finish the pie crusts for you," Uncle Polo offered. "Now, don't look so shocked, child. I've had to care for the baking since Hanna died, I'll have you know. Let me take that." He lifted the flowered apron from Amaranth's hands and solemnly tied it around his waist. "Run along, dear."

As she started off down the hall, feet padding on the wooden floor, she rolled her eyes briefly. How many more pies would she have to make? Prisca was only having a small wedding, but hobbits did love their food, and simply because a small number of them would attend was no reason to stint on provisions. Four berry pies already sat in the cupboard, waiting for their companions Uncle Polo was currently preparing.

Prisca glanced up as Amaranth entered the sewing room. "Thank goodness you're here. Would you mind fixing this? I simply must finish embroidering the bodice tonight so I can sew and hem the skirt tomorrow and sew the ribbons on the day after that and . . ."

Amaranth took the proffered piece of material as she cut her cousin off good-naturedly. "Yes, Prisca, I think we both have your schedule memorized. Best start fetching your embroidery thread—this shouldn't take too long, and you can work on the other side of the bodice while I'm mending—I mean, unmending—the sleeve."

Prisca scurried over to a small chest to one side of the room and began rummaging frantically through it. "Scarlet...cerise...rose...amethyst...where is that confusticated gold—pardon my language!"

Amaranth laughed. "Not to worry, I've got brothers. And the gold thread is on the sewing table right next to your pattern where you left it before supper."

Her cousin straightened immediately and skittered to the table, where she snatched up the spool and needle. "Whatever would we do without you? I'm so glad you could come up to help with the wedding—Father's so good about things but he simply can't manage everything himself, and you've seen the terrible mess I make of even sewing a dress. And Posco can be bribed with sweets only so many times. I don't know if we can ever thank you enough."

Stitch after stitch unraveled neatly under Amaranth's hook. "My pleasure, Prisca." Pleasure. Such a simple word, not nearly strong enough. Getting out of Buckland for a month or more, even if it was only a jaunt over to Hobbiton to do more of the same things she did at home, was reward enough for her. Maybe if she could show her parents that she could be trusted with travel, they'd let her go farther afield, even to Bree. She was 37 after all, hardly a blithering tween anymore.

Pop, pop, pop. "There we are!" She held out the sleeve, now with plenty of room for an arm inside. "Embroider away to your heart's content. I'd better go check on those pies I left with Uncle Polo."

"He's quite to be trusted. You needn't worry about him—it's my brother you'll have to keep eyes out for." Prisca licked her thread and poked it at her needle. "He can be—quite—persistent—when he sees—good food. Ha, there we are. Now stay while I knot you."

Amaranth left her lecturing her thread and headed back toward the kitchen. Just as she was padding through the front entryway, though, a strange sound caught her attention. There were loud voices outside, two of them, raised in what sounded like an argument. Not that that was odd in and of itself, of course; she'd heard plenty of hobbits talking loudly in the lane before. But these voices were deeper, and the lilt was just different enough to give her pause. She cast one glance down the hall toward the kitchen—where without a doubt she heard Uncle Polo warning Posco away from the bowl of pie filling—and then strode to the door.

She cracked it open first, just to get a better look at the strangers.

Oh bebother and confusticate the pair of them, they were standing in Prisca's prize peony patch! Without a second thought, she flung the door open and stormed toward them. "Excuse me, if you wouldn't mind, those happen to be extremely important flowers you are trampling all over with your nasty big boots, so if you would kindly take about two steps to your right, there is a beautifully raked path for the purpose of standing around aimlessly in, thank you very much—"

Wait.

Nasty big boots?

Her eyes traveled slowly up the trespassers, from the detailed workings on their leather boots to the thick fur edging on their coats to the sharp ends of various weapons protruding from their belts to the beards on their chins (well, more so on one than the other) to the beads in their hair.

No, definitely not hobbits. These were actual dwarves. From even farther outside the Shire than she'd ever dreamed of traveling. And they were here, in front of her, killing the flowers her cousin needed for a very important day of her life.

She coughed, more to shake herself out of her dumbstruck awe than anything else, and pointed to the side. "Path. Please."

The one with an actual beard, full and golden, swept a bow and obeyed, towing along the dark-haired one behind him. "Our apologies, mistress hobbit. Fili, at your service. And this directionless young fellow has the gall to call himself my brother, Kili."

Kili bobbed a bow as well, clattering the arrows in his quiver. "At your service. Though I'm not the directionless one, Fili's the one who's been turning left at every crossroads because apparently that's how you get through a maze."

"Not that your lovely village is a maze, precisely, mistress, but for first-time visitors—"

"—It's just that every way is the scenic way," Kili finished.

Amaranth eyed them. "So you're lost, then. The Blue Mountains are a bit more to the west, if that's what you're looking for."

Kili shook his head. "We've just come from the Blue Mountains, actually. We were looking for a Mr. Boggins. Big round door, glowing rune for expert burglar on it—d'you know where he might live?"

She blinked at him, not sure where to start. "In case you haven't noticed, all the doors around here are big and round."

"You can see why we might be having so much difficulty, then," Fili smiled.

"And we've got no burglars around here, thank you very much. We're all very respectable folk here in Hobbiton." Glowing rune, indeed. That was strange talk. Maybe these two had just wandered up from the Green Dragon after a tankard too many—in which case she probably should not be standing out here chinwagging with them, no matter how agreeable they seemed. Especially with all those weapons on them. But the sparkle in Kili's dark eyes and the quirk of Fili's smile seemed lucid enough.

"But master Gandalf told us very particularly we were to come for supper tonight at the home of Mr. Bilbo Boggins, here in Hobbiton," Kili persisted.

Amaranth could hardly believe her ears. The wandering wizard? What did he have to do with dwarves, or Hobbiton, or burglary? What in the Shire was going on? But there was only one Bilbo anywhere in Hobbiton. "Do you mean Bilbo Baggins? Up in Bag End under the Hill?"

They shrugged and nodded.

"Then, begging master Gandalf's pardon, if he is behind all this, he's got it all wrong. Bilbo's my cousin, and he's as far from a burglar as a hog is from a butcher! And I'm sure he would never—I mean, I was not aware he had any, uh, connections with dwarves before."

"Be that as it may, mistress—what was your name, again?" Fili paused.

She'd completely forgotten her manners in all the excitement, practically swooning over the exoticness of their presence. Stupid hobbit. "Beg pardon, I'm Amaranth Brandybuck."

"Be that as it may, mistress Amaranth, we are overdue for supper with him. If you could point out the way to his particular round door, we'd be out of your hair and your flowers in no time."

And just like that, she could have rid herself of them. Washed her hands of these two trespassers and gone back to the pies (or what would be left of them if Posco had gotten his hands on them). But something—whether it was flightiness, irresponsibility, or just plain curiosity—something took hold of her voice, and she heard herself saying, "I could show you the way, if you'd like."


	2. Chapter 2: Mister Boggins

**Welcome back to Chapter Two! I own nothing except my lack of ideas on how to make these notes interesting. Enjoy!**

"Oh, you needn't do that," Kili protested. "Just point it out, it can't be too far—can it?"

"No, not too far, but there are several of those confusing crossroads in the way, and turning left at all of them would leave you wandering straight the opposite direction." Amaranth smiled what she hoped was her most convincing smile, the one that always got Posco off her back, and turned back toward the door. "Stay right there and don't touch the flowers, and I'll be back in two blinks."

Leaving them standing gingerly on the path, she darted inside and down the hall to the kitchen. Uncle Polo was just putting the last of the new pies into the oven to bake. "Is everything all right, child?" he asked. "You look rather flushed."

She was about to spill everything, but—if he knew she'd volunteered to go traipsing through the near-dark with two strange dwarves, he'd never let her leave the kitchen. "Yes, perfectly all right, nothing at all the matter. There's just been some tweens larking about outside and I had to chase them off the peonies, but some are quite crushed as it is. I think I'm going to run up the way to cousin Bilbo's and see if he'd let us use any of his flowers."

"At this hour?" Uncle Polo blinked. "He's probably just enjoying his nice quiet supper. I'm sure you could go see him tomorrow, couldn't you?"

He wouldn't be enjoying a nice quiet supper once the two dwarves showed up, but there wasn't much she could do about that now, was there. She shrugged. "I'm sure we'll have a whole host of other errands to run tomorrow, and I don't want to forget! Besides, you know we haven't seen each other in ages, and it's about time I popped over." She glanced around the kitchen and remembered the four pies baked earlier, resting in the cupboard. "In fact," she continued, heading that direction, "in case I do interrupt his supper, I'll just take him one of these pies. That shouldn't be too hard to replace tomorrow, now, will it?"

"Well, no, I suppose not, but—"

"Oh good! I'll be back as soon as I can." Amaranth wrapped the pie in a clean dishcloth and tucked it away in her market basket. Maybe that would help give her an entrance into Bag End once she dropped off the dwarves. Whatever did they and Gandalf want with Bilbo? Besides the ridiculous burglar thing, of course. "Thank you ever so much for doing the other pies! I promise I'll make it up to you tomorrow." And with that, she escaped out the door.

Fili and Kili were still standing just where she'd left them, looking as if they'd literally not moved a muscle. When they saw her, though, they instantly relaxed. "So, which way to Mr. Boggins's place then, mistress?" Fili asked.

"Please, Amaranth is fine. And it's just up this way." She swung the gate shut behind them with a creak and a click of the latch—no more blossom-crushing bumblers would stray into that flowerbed tonight! "Also, it's Baggins. Not Boggins. Bilbo Baggins."

Fili nodded. "Right, sorry."

Kili grinned. "Right, Bilbo Boggins. That's what I said."

Why on earth Bilbo was having these two over for supper, she could not imagine. Though they did say Gandalf was part of the matter. Maybe he'd be able to keep Bilbo from having a conniption when they crushed his flowers or knocked his books off the shelves with all those pointy things bristling off them. Well, might as well ask. "So if I might be so bold, what brings the two of you out to see Bilbo, anyway?"

They were walking behind her, so she couldn't see their reaction, but they didn't immediately answer, and the silence felt oddly stiff for a moment. Then Fili answered, "We were looking for a certain kind of person to help us out on a job, and master Gandalf suggested him. We're meeting with him tonight to settle the arrangements."

"What sort of a job? You mentioned burglaring earlier, what sort of job do dwarves need a burglar for?"

"Now, mistress Amaranth, we can't go spilling all our secrets!" There was laughter in Fili's voice, but it didn't quite ring true. But it might be rude to press at this point, so she laughed back and let it go.

"I suppose you're right. Nothing like an air of mystery when it comes to visiting people after dark."

The silence was less stiff then, but she broke it again anyway. "What do you do when you're not getting lost in the Shire or trampling people's flowers?"

"Oh, anything, really," Kili replied. "We've done a lot of guard work, merchant caravans and the like. Fili and me, we've been all over the Blue Mountains, the Iron Hills, and even as far west as Dunland."

Amaranth felt a funny ache settle in her chest at his words. Such far-off places, and he spoke like they were as familiar as the tops of his feet. "It must be wonderful, getting to wander all over like that. Climb mountains, ford rivers, see new places that used to be only stories..."

"Do you like to travel too?" Kili again.

"I haven't been far beyond the Shire," she had to admit, "but I've been all over Hobbiton and Buckland and between, and I want to visit across the Brandywine to Bree someday. Mostly I've just been around Buckland, though. My family's there, see. I'm only here on the odd occasion like this one—another cousin is getting married and I'm helping with all the preparations."

"Bree's not bad," Kili said. "Good ale at the Prancing Pony, that's the truth. Does Mister Boggins keep a good cellar? Getting lost is thirsty work, especially with all these hills."

As if any Baggins would be anything but a perfect host. "I'm sure Mister _Baggins_ will have everything you could wish for, master Dwarf. He's likely been cooking all day for you two, and here you are making him wait."

"Well, it's not just the two of us," Fili put in. "The others will have already begun to arrive."

"The—the others?" Bilbo consorting with Gandalf and two dwarves was quite odd enough, but there were more? Just what was going on in Bag End tonight, anyway?

"Aye, the others. Your cousin will have a fine chance to show off his larder tonight, mistress Amaranth."

Curiouser and curiouser. Good thing she'd brought that pie. That'd get her in the door for sure. "And soon you'll have the chance to enjoy it. He's just at the top of this hill."

They climbed the winding path up the Hill and reached Bilbo's glossy green door in record time. Sure enough, just as Kili had said, there was a rune glowing faintly silvery blue near the bottom, though whether it truly was the sign for "expert burglar" she certainly couldn't tell. "Here we are," she began to announce, but they had already moved in front of her, and Kili was pounding on the door with a heavy fist.

The first they heard of Bilbo was his voice pitched high and tight, though the words were indistinct. Then he swung open the door—and he did not look at all like the poised and polished host Amaranth remembered from her last visit. This Bilbo Baggins was in his evening gown, his hair rumpled, his eyes wild, his face lined with what was certainly not welcome.

What?

The brothers swept identical bows as they introduced themselves. And Kili added, with a grin far too broad to be merely polite, "You must be Mister Boggins!"

"Kili!" Amaranth hissed from beside him. But he just flashed the grin in her direction before focusing back on Bilbo, who was trying to—was he trying to shut the door on them?

"No, you can't come in, you've come to the wrong house!"

He was definitely trying to shut the door on them. Amaranth started forward to let him know she was there, but Kili beat her to it, shouldering the door back open.

"What? Has it been cancelled?" he asked, all signs of his grin gone.

"No one told us," Fili added.

Bilbo blinked in bewilderment. "Ca—no, nothing's been cancelled."

"Well, that's a relief." And the grin was back. And then the brothers were strolling into Bag End as if they owned the place. Something was very wrong here. Amaranth trailed in after them with a bit less bravado, peering around to see if any of "the others" had shown up (though based on Bilbo's reaction, it was highly likely they had).

"Careful with these, just had them sharpened." She snapped her attention back to the dwarves in time to see Fili unload far too many pointy warlike objects into Bilbo's unwilling arms. Then Kili started scraping his boots on Aunt Belladonna's beautiful old glory box, and Amaranth was about ready to give both of them another piece of her mind, but then "the others" made themselves plain.

A taller, greybearded dwarf with a thick accent—Mister Dwalin, according to Kili—summoned the brothers into the dining room, where another dwarf with a creaky sort of matter-of-factness was moving furniture around to "fit everyone in." That did not bode well.

"Bilbo?" She moved forward from her spot in the middle of the entryway and tapped him on the shoulder as he stood gazing wildly between the four (four!) dwarves in his dining room, and the pile of Fili's knives and Kili's arrows in his arms.

"Ah!" He jumped, and nearly dropped it all. "Cousin Amaranth? What are you doing here? Are you part of this—this plot?"

"What plot? No, I was just—Fili and Kili were lost, and I showed them the way here."

"You did what? Why—why would you—what?" Bilbo's voice was rising higher and higher with every question.

Then the doorbell jangled. And jangled again. "Pardon me, cousin," Bilbo huffed, tossing the weapons down and very nearly shearing the hair off Amaranth's feet. She jumped out of his way as he stalked toward the door and called out, "Go away and bother somebody else, there's far too many dwarves in my dining room as it is! If this is some clodhead's idea of a joke, I can only say, it is in very—poor—taste!"

He grabbed the doorknob and jerked it open.

And was nearly bowled over by what looked to Amaranth like a mountain of squirming cloaks, but was in fact, indubitably, and without a doubt even more dwarves.

Bilbo just stared at them, squirming and groaning on his mat. He looked to Amaranth and made a gesture along the lines of "This is the worst night that I have ever experienced and I am personally going to stab with my best carving knife the person responsible for all this," then peered over the even-more-dwarves to the giant figure standing tall and grey in the shadows outside his door.

"Gandalf."

So the stabbing wasn't going to happen after all. Hopefully, at least. It was probably some sort of bad luck to stab a wizard, especially when he was standing at your front door clearly expecting to be given entrance.

The dwarves sorted themselves out with remarkable ease, and Amaranth watched fascinated as they bowed one after another and spouted off name after outlandishly rhyming name. Fili and Kili hadn't been too hard, but now there was Oin and Gloin, and Bifur and Bofur, not to mention Dori, Nori, _and_ Ori. How did dwarves ever remember who was who? And more importantly, why on earth was Bilbo not expecting them, when they clearly expected him?

All twelve dwarves were now crowding into the dining room, scuffing chairs around with a carelessness that made her wince for the fine carved legs and backs. She was about to go help, as Bilbo was clearly not in a state to offer hospitality, when she remembered her basket. She tapped her cousin on the shoulder as he stood staring at the ruckus. "Here, this is for you."

He stared blankly at the colorful dishcloth. "Something to block out this racket, that's just what I was looking for. Amaranth, why are you here?"

"As I said, I showed Kili and Fili the way, and I was just going to leave this pie and pop back to Uncle Polo's—" eventually—"but I can't just up and abandon you in this state." She shoved the cloth-wrapped pie into his hands, then swung the basket up over her shoulder. "Just leave the door unlocked, I'll be right back."

"Where—where are you going?" he asked as she headed for the door. To his credit, only a mild note of panic rang in his voice.

Uncle Polo, Prisca, forgive her for what she was about to do. "We're going to need some more pies."


	3. Chapter 3: Pillaging the Pantry

**A/N: A huge thanks to Raven with a Writing Desk and RevanOrdo7567 for their awesome reviews! Feedback encourages me to write, so if you feel so inclined, please leave a review and maybe I'll get the next chapter out faster (at least, if I'm not swamped in homework as grad classes pick up here xD). Thank you for reading!**

* * *

Hurrying down the Hill was much easier than hurrying up it, and Amaranth reached Uncle Polo's hole in no time. But wheedling away the other three pies from the pantry was going to take a little longer.

Fortunately, the new batch was still baking in the oven and according to the lick-a-finger-and-tap-the-crust test, they wouldn't be done for several more minutes, which meant she had those minutes to pack up their predecessors while saving Uncle Polo's quizzing for after the fact. Unfortunately, Uncle Polo decided to come perform the stick-a-knife-in-the-center test just as Amaranth was figuring out how to arrange cooling racks and kindling to stack the pies in her basket without squashing them.

"More pies, Amaranth?"

She almost knocked over the neat tower in her basket as she whirled around to face him. "Oh, yes, I mean, cousin Bilbo has more guests than, I mean, when I arrived he had guests and they'd caught him just before baking day"—surely a hobbit as fastidious as Bilbo had one of those—"and he was all out so I couldn't help but mention ours, and he didn't want me to"—or at least he wouldn't have, the dear fellow—"but I told him it was no bother and I promise it won't be, I hid a whole batch of berries in the back of the second pantry in case Posco took to snacking so I can whip up new ones in no time at all, I promise!"

At least that last part was all truth. She'd be staying up late tonight, but she'd stay up late a score of nights if it meant she could find out what master Gandalf was up to with her cousin.

Uncle Polo didn't look quite convinced as he straightened up from the oven. "Bilbo Baggins unprepared for guests? That's a new one, I must say. And four pies-my my. Must be quite the unexpected party he's having."

Amaranth nodded but said nothing, watching him mull it over.

It felt like an entire Age passed before he slowly nodded. "I suppose we can't let him down. Those guests had certainly best appreciate your handiwork, my dear."

She would have flown across the kitchen and hugged him if it wouldn't have meant the possible ruin of her pie tower. As it was, she had to struggle to keep her smile at an appropriate level to show her happiness in being able to help her cousin, instead of giving away her sheer excitement. After all, if word got around that Bilbo was consorting with dwarves and a wizard, only the Green Lady knew what might happen. No, this party was staying as unimportant as possible.

Walking back up the Hill while loaded down with three berry pies should have felt much harder than it did. As it was, it seemed like only a moment before she was wading through dwarves toward the kitchen. Polite "excuse me"s that couldn't be heard turned quickly to elbowing her way around, not that the dwarves seemed to care either way, and twice she had to duck under someone (Dwalin? Bifur? she should have paid more attention to those introductions) toting an entire cask around on his shoulders.

But finally she made it and found her first pie hidden in a cupboard under the crumb-riddled counter, still intact. Laying it out on the counter with its fellows, she looked around the kitchen only to discover the knives were all gone. Not just the silver, but the carving and the paring and the peeling and all the rest of them. "How am I supposed to cut pie without a—"

"Knife?" A familiar voice asked, and Fili held out a blade that looked more like a miniature meat cleaver than anything that should be used on dessert.

"I thought you gave all those to Bilbo," she answered, accepting it anyway.

"Not that one, that's one he keeps in his boot, for emergencies." Kili appeared next to his brother, both guffawing as Amaranth dropped the knife to the counter with a clang.

"Well, I'm certainly not using it on the pies then, am I." She looked around, trying to spot Bilbo in the horde now stuffed into the dining room, but without any luck. "Did either of you happen to see my cousin wandering around looking like he's about to yank the hair clean off his toes?"

"Aye, I think he's still trying to guard the pantry." Fili gestured down the hall as Kili side-eyed the pies laid out in a row. Obviously leaving them alone together was not an option. But there were no cutting utensils to be seen, knives or otherwise.

"Right, then." Amaranth picked up the Dwarven knife gingerly. It looked clean enough, at least. "Just don't—don't tell him, please?"

"We'll be quiet as stone, we promise." Kili grinned and she wasn't sure whether to trust that grin, but she had no other choice.

She raised the knife to make the first cut, then paused. "How many of you are there, exactly?"

"Thirteen, only Uncle's not here yet, so twelve of us and Gandalf makes just thirteen." He was still grinning.

"So assuming that your uncle, Bilbo, and I all would like some, that's sixteen. Perfect." She couldn't help grinning herself as Kili pretended to pout. "A quarter for everyone, then. Master Fili, if I could trouble you to round up some unused plates if any are still around—?"

"At your service." He bowed and was off, though after he actually climbed through the other dwarves onto the dining room table she couldn't watch any more. Bilbo would almost certainly be scrubbing everything down with lye soap for days.

Kili leaned forward across the counter, bracing himself on his elbows. "So tell me, Amaranth, are your cousin's...skills specific to him, or are all hobbits as good as he is?" His words were directed at her, and his hair hung around his face despite a few silver-clasped braids, but she could clearly see his eyes darting toward—

"Away from the pies, please." She waved the knife in what she hoped was a threatening gesture until he straightened up again with a shameless smile and shrug. Oozing charm he may be, but—wait, what? "Which skills do you mean?"

"You know, the ones Fili didn't want to talk about on the road. Burglaring," he elaborated in a loud whisper when she kept staring at him.

"Goodness, I told you already, we're none of us like that, least of all Bilbo." She sliced the first pie into quarters and moved on to the second. The knife was heavy but slid through the filling and crust like they were water.

"Oh, I see, it's a secret." Kili nodded wisely. "Well, we already know, so there's no need to hide anything, is there. You can tell me." His dark eyes were twinkling with conspiratorial glee.

"Kili, I don't know how to make you see, there is nothing to tell." On to the third pie. "We're peaceful, quiet, food-loving, gardening, law-abiding folk here in the Shire. The only burglary that goes on around here is the occasional bundle of mushrooms, and that's only a tween prank. Bilbo's never stolen anything in his life!"

Well...unless she counted Rory's piece of cake that one Midsummer's feast. But it ended up smashed on Posco's face, and besides, that was back when they were all fauntlings.

"Never," she repeated as furrows appeared on Kili's forehead.

"Then why would—" he began, but was interrupted by Fili's arrival, plates in hand.

"Will these do? They're not unused, but when the word of more dessert got around, they emptied in no time."

She eyed the food-crusted plates, then shrugged. "If you don't mind getting tomato juice or marmalade on your pie, then they'll do." Each plate took a piece of pie, and together with the brothers she carried twelve to the dining room.

"Could you please pass these along, sir?" she asked the white-haired dwarf sitting at one corner of the table as Kili and Fili manned the other side.

"Why of course, mistress." He took a plate for himself and began handing others down the table. "I don't believe we met earlier. Balin, at your service. And you must be Mistress Baggins?"

"Oh, no, I'm Bilbo's cousin Amaranth." Goodness, they probably had all assumed—dear. At least Fili and Kili could set them straight (if they chose, at least). "Just helping him out. It seems you all arrived rather suddenly for him."

"He did seem a bit flustered at first, but he apologized handsomely, so I'm sure everything's quite in order. Well, well, this is quite a fine pie. Master Baggins certainly keeps an excellent larder!"

Or had a very generous cousin once removed living down the road, Amaranth almost added. Instead she excused herself and fled back to the kitchen just in time to catch Kili about to stick his finger in the last pie.

"You had yours already," she scolded as she slapped his hand away. She should probably be more concerned that she was slapping a strange dwarf than about his attempted robbery, but tonight was a strange night. "I don't think master Gandalf would look kindly on someone trying to steal his pie."

"I wasn't trying to rob Gandalf!" Kili shook his hand out as if she'd bludgeoned it.

"Well, Bilbo and I certainly deserve a share, don't we? And your uncle?"

"I would never dream of taking food from you or your cousin either," he said, ignoring Amaranth's snort. "But it's not as though Uncle Thorin would know. Besides, as soon as he comes we'll all have to settle down to business, and this wonderful pie doesn't deserve to be eaten by someone who's not able to pay it the proper attention."

"Your flattery is noted, but the answer is still no." She wiped the last few plates down with her dishcloth and set out the final four slices of pie. "These two here are for your uncle and me, and if I come back and find either has been disturbed, I-I'll ask master Gandalf very nicely to turn you into a spotted toad, so I will."

She left Kili gaping in the kitchen and carried the other two plates toward the entryway, where Bilbo was gesticulating fiercely and whisper-yelling at Gandalf himself. "—want to get used to them! They pillaged my pantry, I'm not even going to tell you what they've done to—"

"Pardon me for interrupting you, Bilbo," she said as she slid in between them, "but I'm guessing you haven't had much to eat?"

He flapped his hand in the general direction of the dining room. "Amaranth. Have you seen the absolute mess in there? I was lucky to nab a scone—they've cleaned me out entirely! And I still don't understand what they're doing in my—"

"Good thing I brought the pie then, isn't it. Here you are!"

The visible tension in his shoulders eased just slightly as he took the plate from her, and she turned to Gandalf. "I saved a piece for you too, master wizard, if you'd like it, that is." Did wizards eat pie?

He hmmed thoughtfully and reached down to take the plate. "Thank you, my dear. This looks very good. Amaranth—Brandybuck, is it? Mirabella Took's daughter?"

"Why, yes!" She stared up at him, flabbergasted. "How did you know?"

"I knew Belladonna Took and her two closest sisters very well when they were young. Did they never mention my fireworks to you?"

"Excuse me," a quiet voice cut in as one of the smaller dwarves approached Bilbo and Amaranth, mouse-brown hair hanging over his thick knitted scarf. "Sorry to interrupt, but what should I do with my plate?"

They had manners after all. Who would have guessed—

"Here, give it to me, Ori." Fili strolled up and snatched the plate in question, then hurled it toward a suddenly-appearing Kili, who hurled it into the kitchen, where it—did not smash? Thank the Lady for small mercies, at least.

"What do you think you're doing?" She started toward the brothers, only for Fili to knock her out of the way of a flying soup bowl.

"Best stay against the wall there, Amaranth!"

Clutching his half-eaten pie, Bilbo raced past her shouting about blunting knives as a rhythmic clatter of silver and a bevy of flying forks rose from the dwarves in the dining room.

Then Kili started to sing about wanton destruction of property.

And Fili joined in.

And so did the rest of the dwarves.

Even though no dishes were actually broken by the time they were done tossing them into neat towers, and despite the surprising amount she enjoyed the impromptu music from her spot plastered against the entryway wall, Amaranth was officially taking back her hasty judgment about Dwarven manners.


	4. Chapter 4: The Lonely Mountain

**A/N: I own nothing; a huge thanks for reading, and double thanks to ****Raven with a Writing Desk and RevanOrdo7567**** for your continued review support! :D**

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"That's what Bilbo Baggins hates!"

The song ended with a riot of cheers, and Amaranth peeled herself away from the wall to peer into the dining room. Over Bilbo's shoulder she saw all the dwarves, and even Gandalf, laughing from behind the table full of piled dishes.

"Well, at least you can't say they didn't try," she murmured to an even more befuddled Bilbo than before (if that were possible).

He didn't have a chance to answer.

Someone knocked three times on the front door, and silence smothered the smial. Only Gandalf dared break it.

"He is here."

Bilbo turned stiffly toward the door, but Gandalf stood quickly. "Let me answer that, Bilbo."

The dwarves filed out of the dining room to clear his way, and he ducked under the lintel into the main passage. In all the shuffle, Bilbo was swept in the wizard's wake, but Amaranth, trying to keep out of everyone's way, found herself shuffled around the corner back toward the kitchen. Then Kili was grabbing her hand and tugging her up toward the passage again, all but running in his excitement. "You don't want to miss my uncle meeting Bilbo, do you?"

No, she probably didn't, if only because Bilbo might have some choice words for the leader of this troupe—especially since he couldn't very well rage at Gandalf.

But as soon as Gandalf opened the door and a rumbling voice greeted him from the darkness, Amaranth knew Bilbo wouldn't be raging at this dwarf either.

"I thought you said this place would be easy to find," the newcomer said, stepping inside. His heavy boots thudded on the boards like hammers. "I lost my way, twice."

"I can tell he's your relation," Amaranth muttered to Kili, who muffled his laugh. Fili, standing a little behind them, let out a quiet huff as well.

"Would not have found it at all had it not been for that mark on the door," their uncle continued, unfastening his cloak. Ori and another dwarf standing nearest the door bowed as he moved past, though the tallest one—Dwalin, she thought—did not. Odd.

Then Bilbo wriggled between them and out into the entryway. "Mark? There's no mark on that door, it was painted a week ago!"

Kili's uncle completely ignored Bilbo, turning instead to Fili and Kili with a soft, proud smile of greeting that completely transformed his face—and glossed right over Amaranth standing between them. With an answering smile Kili took the proffered cloak and tucked it under his arm.

Gandalf, meanwhile, had claimed responsibility for vandalizing the door and was beckoning for her cousin to face his latest guest. "Bilbo Baggins, allow me to introduce the leader of our company—Thorin Oakenshield."

Smile fading, Thorin turned from his nephews and took two slow steps toward Bilbo. Looked him up and down. Crossed his arms deliberately. From behind, Amaranth couldn't tell what sort of expression he now had on his face, and his first words gave nothing away. "So. This is the hobbit."

Yes, dwarves definitely could use work on their manners, she decided. He could at least have said, Thank you for feeding the twelve bottomless wells I have for friends, Master Baggins. Or maybe, Hello, a pleasure to meet you. But no, he was circling her cousin like a cat toying with a mouse.

"Tell me, Master Baggins, have you done much fighting?"

"P-pardon me?" Bilbo tried to spin to keep up with Thorin's pacing.

"Axe or sword? What's your weapon of choice?"

Bilbo shrugged. "Well, I do have some skill at conkers, if you must know"—a slight exaggeration, unless he'd grown better since fifteen years ago, but under the circumstances Amaranth would allow it—"but I fail to see, uh, why that's relevant . . ." He quailed under Thorin's steady gaze and plucked at one of his suspenders.

"Thought as much." Now the smirk in Thorin's voice was clear. He tossed over his shoulder, "He looks more like a grocer than a burglar."

They all chuckled. Even Kili (who almost earned himself another slap on his hand before Amaranth remembered she should probably not do that with this majestic but awful uncle standing right there, especially one who talked about axes and swords so casually). Even Gandalf (who she thought had more manners than that, but maybe when one was a wizard one did not have to pay attention to things like manners or the rules of hospitality).

Then Thorin turned toward the dining room, and Amaranth remembered the stacks and stacks of dishes on the table. She yanked on Kili's sleeve. "Can you help me clear the dishes? I'm not sure you'd all fit in the parlor if you have business to attend to."

"Of course!" He waved at the dwarves standing behind them. "Bofur, Bombur, Nori, lend us a hand?"

Fili came along too, and the five of them did all the heavy lifting, toting the dirty dishes to the empty pantry for the time being. Which left Amaranth to bob a curtsy to Thorin (rude as he may have been to Bilbo, there was something in his manner that demanded respect), beg his pardon for the mess, and promise it would be cleared in a jiffy.

He nodded with a polite smile. "No trouble, Mistress Baggins."

"Oh, I'm not—I'm his cousin, Amaranth Brandybuck. Just helping him out a bit after your lot invaded—I mean, dropped by for supper, I'm sorry!" Her and her big mouth. "Let me go get you a plate."

"My thanks" was all he said as she practically ran for the kitchen. Between her and Bilbo, this Thorin Oakenshield must think hobbits terribly silly creatures now. She found a half-empty pot of soup hanging over the kitchen fire, and she ladled some into a bowl Bofur tossed her (after she wiped it out with her dishcloth, of course). Then there was a small plate of rolls left over, and she set the soup bowl in the center with the rolls all around. With that in one hand and both untouched pieces of pie in the other, she hurried back to the dining room and set the food down on the table in front of a now seated Thorin.

The others were ranged around the table as well with fresh tankards of ale, the little room crammed full of solemn bearded faces and dark, staring eyes. Gandalf had somehow fit his giant self into a corner by the doorframe, but she didn't see Bilbo anymore.

Now that the dinner crisis was over, and she had time to think, it was probably time for her to leave. The pies had been delivered, Bilbo no longer had to fend off dwarves from his crockery and antiques, and with Thorin's arrival she had no doubt that the rowdiness was not coming back.

But she still didn't know why they were here.

She was hovering in the passage just outside the dining room, undecided between duty to her poor cousin Prisca (well, second cousin by marriage, really) and her poor actual cousin Bilbo, when she finally caught Bilbo's eye. He was crammed up on a stool behind Gandalf, barely visible over the wizard's shoulder. When their eyes met, she gave a little wave and made as if to go, just to see if he still needed her.

From the way his eyes widened and he jerked his head in the most vigorous of negatives, that was an absolute for-the-love-of-my-sanity-Amaranth-please-stay.

Very well then.

But it wasn't as if she'd been invited, so she could hardly go join Bilbo on his perch. She nodded reassuringly at him, then sat down on a stepstool shoved to one side of the dining room entry, keeping the wall between her and Gandalf while staying in easy earshot. She'd just listen a little while, discover what brought thirteen dwarves and a wizard to Bag End, then collect her curiosity and her basketful of pie pans and head for Uncle Polo's.

One of the older dwarves—Balin, by the sound of it—was asking about a meeting in Ered Luin. "Did they all come?"

The thud of a tankard on the table. "Aye," Thorin answered, "envoys from all seven kingdoms."

From the way the others responded, this seemed to be a good thing. But then one of them spoke up, "What do the dwarves of the Iron Hills say? Is Dain with us?"

There was a tense pause before Thorin finally said, "They will not come. They say this quest is ours, and ours alone."

A quest. That sounded grand to Amaranth. But thirteen dwarves did seem a small number for such a thing.

The ensuing silence was broken by Bilbo, of all people. "You're—going on a quest?"

Yes, good job, cousin, keep them talking.

Gandalf cleared his throat. "Bilbo, my dear fellow, let us have a little more light."

A moment later, Bilbo came out and plucked a candle from the overhead candelabrum. He glanced over at Amaranth perched on the stool and gave her a slightly puzzled look, but she put her finger to her lips and he moved on, shaking his head, to collect a candleholder from the shelf nearby.

In the dining room, there was the rustle of parchment as Gandalf continued, "Far to the East, over ranges and rivers, beyond woodlands and wastelands, lies a single, solitary peak." It was the single most beautiful sentence Amaranth had ever heard.

Bilbo leaned over Thorin's shoulder and said as if reading, "The Lonely Mountain." Gandalf must have pulled out a book or a map or something of that nature, she decided. Bilbo set the candle down and left the dining room again, coming over to sit by Amaranth with a sigh.

"Aye," another voice chimed in, "Oin has read the portents—" Scoffing and longsuffering sighs arose, but the speaker kept going. "—And the portents say it is time."

She leaned her head to one side to examine her cousin. "You don't want to stay in there? Find out what it's all about?"

He shook his head, whispering back, "To be quite honest, cousin Amaranth, I want to go to sleep and wake up with all this having been just a very bad—"

"'When the birds of yore return to Erebor, the reign of the beast will end.'" That must be Oin, though Amaranth wasn't sure what face went with the name.

Bilbo stiffened, and she poked him in the shoulder. "Don't say you're not at least a tiny bit curious what they're talking about. I know I am."

He hesitated, then stood. "Oh, very well." Back to the door he went, asking, "Beast? What—beast?"

"Oh, that would be a reference to Smaug the terrible, chiefest and greatest calamity of our age," said one of them—Bofur, perhaps?—far too calmly. "Airborne firebreather. Teeth like razors, claws like meathooks. Extremely fond of precious metals—"

"Yes, I know what a dragon is," Bilbo snapped.

Ori, meanwhile was making empty threats against this dragon, until someone told him to sit down and Balin pointed out, "The path would be difficult enough with an army behind us, but we number just thirteen—and not thirteen of the best, nor brightest."

"We may be few in number, but we're fighters, all of us! To the last dwarf!" Fili exclaimed, with a thump on the table.

"And you forget," Kili cut in, "we have a wizard in our company. Gandalf will have killed hundreds of dragons in his time!"

Really? No one had ever mentioned that. Amaranth leaned carefully around the corner and looked up at Gandalf, but he was hemming and hawing and puffing little smoke rings through his beard and not answering any of the dwarves as they pressed him, so that didn't bode well for this quest thing. She was starting to piece it together—Smaug the dragon in this Lonely Mountain, the dwarves wanted to fight him because of a prophecy about birds—but it seemed doomed to failure, as almost everyone so far had managed to point out in one way or another. And yet she couldn't help wondering, what if, what if . . .

Now they were all yelling again. Dwarves certainly did know how to make a racket. Bilbo was waving his arms at them in an attempt to silence them, but it was Thorin's deafening shout that finally did the job (and made Amaranth whack her head against the wall when she startled).

"If we have read these signs, do you not think others will have read them too? Rumors have begun to spread—the dragon Smaug has not been seen for sixty years. Eyes look east to the mountain, assessing. Wondering. Weighing the risk. Perhaps the vast wealth of our people now lies unprotected."

Ah. Now that was a more reasonable motivation than the prophecy about birds. And if the dragon might be dead anyway...

"Do we sit back while others claim what is rightfully ours? Or do we seize this chance to take back Erebor!"

The company's cheers were cut short by Balin once again bringing common sense to the table (Amaranth was quite beginning to like that particular dwarf, even if common sense did seem a bit gloomy). "But you forget, the front gate is sealed. There is no way into the mountain."

"That, my dear Balin, is not entirely true."

Both Thorin and Bilbo stared in Gandalf's direction. Barely above a whisper, Thorin asked, "How came you by this?"

"It was given to me by your father—by Thrain—for safekeeping. It is yours now." Gandalf's hand reached out toward Thorin, and Amaranth caught a glimpse of dark metal before it vanished into the dwarf's fist.

"If there is a key"—ah, thank you, Fili, so that's what it was—"there must be a door."

"These runes speak of a Side-Door on the western side of the Mountain, a hidden passage to the Lower Halls," Gandalf replied, with another rustle of parchment. "'Five feet high the door and three may walk abreast,' it says, too small for Smaug ever to have crept through at all."

"There's another way in." She could hear the grin in Kili's voice, and it was contagious. A secret door to a dragon's lair...razor teeth or not, this was exciting.

Gandalf seemed to sense the rising spirits in the room and added quickly, "Well, if we can find it. But dwarf doors are invisible when closed. The answer lies hidden somewhere in this map, but I do not have the skill to find it—but there are others in Middle Earth who can. The task I have in mind will require a great deal of stealth, and no small amount of courage, but if we are careful, and clever, I believe that it can be done."

"That's why we need a burglar."


	5. Chapter 5: The Wrong Hobbit

**A/N: Thanks to Raven with a Writing Desk, RevanOrdo7567, Artemisdesari, and jilba25 for reviewing! As always I hugely appreciate your feedback. *distributes Hobbit Day cake among you all in honor of September 22***

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"That's why we need a burglar."

Ori's words landed on Amaranth like a shock of lightning. Everything made sense now. But if these dwarves wanted a hobbit who would burgle a dragon, they were definitely in the wrong smial.

Bilbo, however, still seemed to be struggling to understand. "Yes, a good one, too—an expert, I'd imagine," he answered Ori with far too much comprehension in his voice for it to be real.

"And are you?"

Bilbo actually looked over his shoulder, then down at Amaranth, as if trying to determine who was being addressed. The poor fellow. "Am I—what."

"He said he's an expert!" That was definitely the dwarf with the ear trumpet.

"Me? No, no no no no, I'm not a burglar. I've never stolen a thing in my life, ask cousin Amaranth here, she can tell you—" He broke off as he caught sight of her frantically shaking her head, but it was too late. Both Gandalf and Thorin leaned to where they could see her, and both raised fearsome eyebrows.

She scrambled to her feet in an instant, hands twisting in her skirt. Confusticate that Bilbo Baggins! But her mouth was already running with quite a different line: "Yes, I mean, I already told Fili and Kili that if they were looking for a burglar, Bag End was the wrong place to go!" So she was dragging them under the wagon with her, might as well, it was really their fault she was here in the first place, them and their silly big boots! "Bilbo's a very respectable hobbit in these parts, he'd never be any good at robbing a dragon, I'm sure of it, it's much too adventurous for him—" Please, someone, stop staring at her and say something so she could shut up and go back to eavesdropping.

"I'm afraid I have to agree with Mistress Brandybuck, he's hardly burglar material." The Lady bless Balin forever and ever.

"Aye, the wild is no place for gentlefolk who can neither fight nor fend for themselves."

Bilbo nodded along with the big dwarf's words, and the others seemed to agree, voices rising in both assent and promises that their fighting abilities would certainly be enough to drive off the dragon. Amaranth was about to take the opportunity to slide back out of sight when Gandalf caught her eye and pinned her in place with a single stare.

She could only watch as the shadows abruptly deepened around him and he straightened to his full height. With a booming voice he cut through the arguing. "Enough! If I say Bilbo Baggins is a burglar, then a burglar he is!"

Silence fell as the shadows withdrew and Amaranth could breathe again. "Hobbits are remarkably light on their feet; in fact, they can pass unseen by most if they choose. And, while the dragon is accustomed to the smell of dwarf, the scent of hobbit is all but unknown to him, which gives us a distinct advantage."

Was no one going to ask Bilbo's permission or consent to this? But then, she had to admit these were valid arguments. Perhaps a hobbit could be key to the success of this quest, where all the swords and axes couldn't. That was certainly rather exciting (though judging by Bilbo's huge eyes and gaping mouth, he did not feel remotely the same).

"You asked me to find the fourteenth member of this company, and I have chosen Mister Baggins." Gandalf seated himself again. "Let anyone say I chose the wrong person or the wrong house, and you can stop at thirteen and have all the bad luck you like, or go back to your mountains. There is a lot more in him than you guess, and a deal more than he has any idea of himself."

Thorin hesitated, and the wizard pressed, "You must trust me on this."

After far too long a pause for Amaranth's liking, Thorin gave in. "Very well, we'll do it your way. Give him the contract."

Over Bilbo's pleading and Bofur's optimistic "Well, then, we're off then," Balin stood and pulled a thick folded parchment from his coat. "It's just the usual—summary of out-of-pocket expenses, time required, remuneration, funeral arrangements, so forth."

Thorin shoved it into Bilbo's reluctant hands, and he staggered back. "F-funeral arrangements?"

Amaranth came to look over his shoulder as he shook open the contract. It reached almost to the floor and was written in a tidy if rather ornate hand—presumably Balin's. It certainly looked official enough. Bilbo scanned the contents, finding and reading out the key parts immediately: terms of payment, and the dwarves' denial of responsibility for all injuries incurred. These both seemed reasonable, except for the part where the contract began to detail every possible injury a burglar might sustain upon facing a fire-breathing dragon should it turn out not to be dead. This clause apparently took up an entire extra side-sheet of parchment.

"Lacerations—evisceration—incineration?"

"Oh, aye, he'll melt the flesh off your bones in the blink of an eye," Bofur cheerily called out.

That . . . was not a pleasant image. Amaranth swallowed hard.

"You all right there, laddie?" Balin asked as Bilbo leaned forward, gasping for breath.

"I-feel a bit faint," he managed to choke out.

"Here, I'll get you something to drink." Amaranth dashed for the kitchen; that was a conversation she preferred not to be part of, and besides, there must be a bit of tea lying around somewhere. But by the time she got back with a teacup half-full of cold chamomile dregs (the best she could find on short notice), Bilbo was prone on the carpet, fainted clean away.

She nearly dropped the cup as she wheeled on the dwarves. "What did you do to him?"

"Your cousin has no stomach for dragons, it would seem," Thorin rumbled.

"Though Bofur may have been needlessly colorful in his descriptions," Gandalf added.

She could only imagine. "Well, don't just stand there staring at him, would someone please help me get him somewhere quiet? He needs a chance to think without you and your—your dragons!"

"I'm—I'm all right," came a faint voice from the floor, and Bilbo struggled to his feet with Amaranth's assistance. He made to pick up the contract from its spot on the carpet, but Amaranth snatched it up and set it over on the stepstool.

"Don't bother your head with that right now. You go and have a seat in the parlor, and I'll fix you a nice cup of tea, how does that sound?"

"That—that sounds quite nice. Thank you." He turned down the passage, and she returned to the kitchen. At least the dwarves had barely touched the tea canisters, aside from making that one pot of chamomile.

It took her only a few moments to stir up the fire and heat some water, and in a few more minutes she was carrying a mug of properly hot tea to Bilbo, now ensconced in his favorite armchair by the fire.

"Here you go. I wasn't sure if you took cream or honey, but I can fetch some if you would like."

Bilbo shook his head and took a careful sip. "This is perfect, thank you, Amaranth."

"It's late, I should probably be going . . . is there anything else I can do for you first? This has certainly been quite the evening."

"No, you can run along. You've come for Prisca's wedding, I presume? You'd better get some sleep then, I'm sure she has you all quite busy." He attempted a smile. "I'll be all right. Let me just sit quietly for a moment."

"You've been sitting quietly for far too long," came the gruff voice of Gandalf from the corner of the room. "Tell me, when did doilies and your mother's dishes become so important to you? I remember a young hobbit who was always running off in search of Elves in the woods, who'd stay out late and come home after dark, trailing mud and twigs and fireflies. A young hobbit who would have liked nothing better than to find out what was beyond the borders of the Shire."

Bilbo leaned forward to look at him around the wing of the chair. "Are you quite sure you're not talking to Amaranth?"

She laughed. "No, he's right, Bilbo! I used to love when Mother would bring Rory and me up to visit her sisters, because you were always good for adventures. Remember playing at Bounders, and you were always our captain when we fought off wolves? Or taking us mushroom-hunting and calling it looking for hidden gold?" She could almost hear their stick-swords swooshing and clacking again, almost feel the moss under her feet and the breeze in her curls.

Bilbo gave her a rueful smile. "I was barely a tween then. I've changed, that's all."

"And not entirely for the better, Bilbo Baggins. The world is not in these books and maps you've so carefully collected; it's out there." Gandalf gestured toward the nearest window and its circle of silver moonlight.

"I can't just go running off into the blue! I am a Baggins, of Bag End."

"You are also a Took."

Amaranth couldn't help a grin—that was her favorite excuse for anything she did that raised her parents' eyebrows too high—but Bilbo collapsed back into his chair in exasperation, eyes lifted toward the ceiling as if wishing it would cave in on him.

"Did you know that your great-great-great-great-uncle Bullroarer Took was so large he could ride a real horse?"

"Yes," Bilbo and Amaranth said at the same time. Every hobbit, not just his relatives, knew about Bullroarer Took.

"Well, he could! In the Battle of the Green Fields he charged the goblin ranks. He swung his club so hard, he knocked the goblin king Golfimbul's head clean off, and it sailed a hundred yards through the air and went down a rabbit-hole."

Wait. That was new.

"And thus the battle was won—and the game of golf invented at the same moment."

"I do believe you made that up." Bilbo was smiling in spite of himself.

"All good stories deserve embellishment." Gandalf moved past Amaranth to settle himself on the chair across from Bilbo's, laying the contract on the footrest between them. "You'll have a tale or two to tell of your own when you come back."

"Can you promise that I will come back?" For the first time that evening, he sounded as if he was seriously considering the proposition.

"No. And if you do, you will not be the same."

She could picture it now, a bolder, braver Bilbo carrying a sword instead of a walking-stick, regaling her and the other cousins with tales of how he'd helped a company of dwarves defeat a mighty dragon. That story would need no embellishment, and she suddenly desperately wanted to hear it. Perhaps even to—

But she caught sight of the decision in Bilbo's eyes even before he shook his head. "That's what I thought. Sorry, Gandalf, I can't sign this." He stood. "You've got the wrong hobbit."

The words felt like he'd whacked her across the stomach with a stick-sword. She wasn't sure why, only knew that with every bone in her body she'd needed him to say yes. Now he was looking at her like she'd missed something. "Sorry?"

"I said, I suppose I'll see you at the wedding."

She gave him a little smile, and he must have seen her wordless encouragement, because one corner of his mouth quirked up sadly. "I can't do it, Amaranth. I'm sorry."

"I know."

She watched as he walked down the passage, getting the attention of a few dwarves and pointing them in the direction of the spare rooms they could use. What had changed him so much from who he used to be? Was it his parents' deaths, perhaps? Those had certainly been sobering times for both Baggins and Took clans, but it would have been especially hard on the only son. Though Aunt Belladonna had died seven whole years ago, and Uncle Bungo eight years before that. Maybe it was just part of growing older. Although, one would think that being older would mean you were even more ready for an adventure, having been through that much more normality. Fifty was practically the prime of life, for the Lady's sake!

A heavy sigh came from behind her, and she turned to see Gandalf staring into the crackling fire. Some funny hollow feeling in her stomach made her say, "I'm sorry about my cousin. Maybe you should have come looking across the Water instead of here in Hobbiton. There's plenty of Tooks—and Brandybucks—out that way who would love an adventure."

Gandalf began cleaning out his pipe. "No, Bilbo needs this as much as they need him. Besides, there is just as much Took blood in him as there is in you, my dear."

"Well, it's clearly been thinned by the Baggins, then, hasn't it." She wasn't sure what was possessing her to argue with a wizard, nor why she was arguing at all, but there was that hollowness in the pit of her stomach again.

"Thinned or not, it will out, in the end. I have faith in your cousin, Amaranth Brandybuck."

"But what if he lets you down? Would you just let these dwarves try sneaking into the mountain themselves? After tonight, I find it a little hard to believe they'd be good at anything involving the need for silence."

Gandalf gave a huff that could pass for amusement.

She kept going, "Surely you had someone in mind to try in the event that Bilbo said no. From what I—couldn't help overhearing, it sounds like a worthy enough cause, one a more adventurous hobbit could easily be convinced to take on. I mean, _I'd_ even volunteer under the right circumstances!"

He turned to look fully at her for the first time in the conversation. "And what might those be?" His eyes glinted strangely in the flickering firelight.

"Well, if I . . . if I didn't have to help Prisca with her wedding, it's in just a few more days, you see, and I've given away half the pies I made just to feed this lot, so I have to replace those, and there's more to make as well, and I help her with her wedding dress, oh, and I have to make sure the flowers for the garlands are collected that morning so they're fresh, and keep Posco from eating all the mushrooms, and—and—"

And what were pies and posies compared with a quest to face down a dragon? These dwarves were doing something that only storybooks had told of, and if the revered Gandalf the Grey thought a peaceful hobbit could contribute to that story-in-the-making . . . well, why shouldn't it be a Brandybuck instead of a Baggins?

Forget about maybe getting to Bree someday. This was much, much better.

Maybe it was the lateness of the hour, maybe it was the Took blood in her veins, or maybe it was the plaintive melody of a subdued dwarvish fiddle choosing that moment to start winding its way through the smial like wind through the hills. Whatever it was, it rushed into the hollow in her stomach and came spilling up out her mouth: "Who should I ask about signing that contract?"


	6. Chapter 6: A Willing Heart

**A/N: Per usual, I own nada. As a heads-up, I'm doing NaNoWriMo next month, so if you don't see another update until December, that's why. That or I died from doing NaNo along with grad school. We'll see.**

**Big thanks to Artemisdesari, RevanOrdo7567, RavenWithAWritingDesk, and sweetsarahndipity for reviewing! I love reviews like Fili loves knives. :D**

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"Who should I ask about the contract?" Amaranth repeated when it became apparent that she must have taken Gandalf aback.

"I imagine that would be Thorin," he finally answered. "He is the leader of this company, and it lies with him to hire burglars. Though I will warn you," he added, "I was hard-pressed to persuade him that a burglar was necessary at all, let alone a hobbit. I daresay you will find it rather difficult to convince him that you should go along."

She'd seen enough of Thorin to believe what Gandalf was saying. The wizard was probably the only person Thorin would listen to. Which meant . . . "If it wouldn't be too much to ask, would you perhaps be willing to vouch for me? You knew my mother and my aunts, and you said yourself there's as much Took in me as there is in Bilbo."

He hesitated, so she hurried on, "If you don't wish to, I didn't mean to presume. It just seems that you're the one person in this smial whose opinion carries any weight with Master Thorin Oakenshield."

Silence hung between them, broken only by the crackling fire and the music drifting through the air. The first dwarvish fiddle had been joined by another, and now a couple of pipe-like instruments and a deeper set of strings took up the song. The hair on Amaranth's feet prickled with the haunting melody.

Perhaps the music had a similarly entrancing effect on Gandalf. Or he just didn't want to risk her putting Thorin off the burglar idea altogether. Whatever the case, he finally nodded and said, "Very well. I will do my best to help persuade him, though I cannot guarantee anything at all."

Somehow Amaranth managed to keep from jumping up and down (she was thirty-seven, for goodness sake, she had to act it if she wanted to have a hope at this) and instead politely and properly thanked him.

Taking the contract with them, they left the parlor and went down the hall toward the dwarves, who were now spread out between the dining room and the passage just outside. Some were perched on the benches, some sat on the table itself, and others had collected stools and chairs from around the smial. All of them were playing instruments—Amaranth saw some with flutes, including the quiet Ori; some with more mellow clarinets, like Bofur; Balin and the biggest dwarf with shoulder-high viols; and Bombur with a drum pinned between his knees. Fili and Kili stood to one side of the passage, each of them practically caressing melody from his dark, gleaming fiddle.

Then the strings of Thorin's golden harp sent a ripple through the room, and the music changed. The flutes and clarinets fell silent, the viols and fiddles drew out their deepest notes, and the drum let out a quiet rumble that Amaranth felt in her chest.

And the dwarves began to sing.

_Far over the misty mountains cold_  
_To dungeons deep and caverns old_  
_We must away ere break of day_  
_To seek the pale enchanted gold_

_The dwarves of yore made mighty spells_  
_While hammers fell like ringing bells_  
_In places deep, where dark things sleep,_  
_In hollow halls beneath the fells_

Her eyes drifted shut as the sound washed over her. The song about Bilbo's dishes had been a skipping-rope ditty compared to this. She had thought dwarves only mined and forged and sculpted, but this music was as much a work of their hands as any of the silver necklaces or golden goblets they sang of. It swept her away to their halls glowing with the treasure they handcrafted, ringing with their harps and their drums and their voices like thunder beneath the stone. But then—

_The pines were roaring on the height_  
_The winds were moaning in the night_  
_The fire was red, it flaming spread_  
_The trees like torches blazed with light_

The song filled with the terror and despair of dwarves and men alike as they faced the destruction of their homes, of their loved ones, of their lives. As they faced the dragon, who claimed their halls and their treasure for his own and silenced the last echoes of their music.

_The mountain smoked beneath the moon_  
_The dwarves, they heard the tramp of doom_  
_They fled their hall to dying fall_  
_Beneath his feet, beneath the moon_

_Far over the misty mountains grim_  
_To dungeons deep and caverns dim_  
_We must away, ere break of day,_  
_To win our harps and gold from him!_

As the song ended, Amaranth dragged the back of her hand across her wet eyes. This was no mere adventure for these dwarves. This was something grander, more solemn. Something she had no part in. For a moment she doubted whether she was doing the right thing. She dared not break the hush that had fallen after the music died away.

Then, somewhere above her, Gandalf coughed.

All twenty-six eyes turned to where they stood.

She felt the wizard nudging her from behind, but for a few panicked breaths she couldn't figure out how to speak. Gandalf seemed to sense this and intervened.

"If you would pardon the interruption, my good dwarves, Amaranth here has arrived at a solution for our friend Bilbo's, ah, reluctance to join in this venture."

"And what might that be?" Thorin asked, hands still resting on the strings of his harp. He turned his gaze on Amaranth, and was this what Bilbo had been facing during the whole conkers debacle? Because everything clever she could possibly have said, everything persuasive or witty or convincing, had flown right out of her head.

But Fili and Kili were giving her twin encouraging smiles, and Bofur was too, and Balin at least looked open to hear what she had to say, so after another deep breath she looked Thorin head-on and said, "If you would allow it, I would like to go in Bilbo's place. As your burglar."

She'd expected a riot, a commotion, a chorus of arguments like had happened so many times over the course of the evening, but there was only silence (aside from the dwarf with the ear trumpet muttering something about _what did she mean, blow in Bilbo's face?_). The smiles disappeared—yes, even Kili's, which she'd thought was a permanent feature—as all the dwarves looked to Thorin to answer.

"And what makes you think you are more fit for such a quest than your cousin?"

"Well, I'm actually willing to go, and Bilbo clearly isn't. And I didn't keel over in a dead faint when Bofur started talking about the dragon, either." That got a muffled snort from the Fili-and-Kili side of the passage. She hoped no one would point out that she had left almost as soon as that talk began.

"But you have no experience with burglary either, I take it?"

"Nothing on the scale of robbing a dragon, of course, but I have snatched a few things, here and there." By which she meant cooling cranberry scones, or vegetables from Farmer Grub's fields, or various dollies of hers and her sisters when Rory or Dinodas would hide them.

"Can ye fight?" This from the big dwarf with a viol, Dwalin, probably.

"Mother always made sure my sisters and I knew a few things about defending ourselves. But a burglar's supposed to be sneaky, not a big brawny warrior. If you needed a fighter, you wouldn't be in the Shire, let alone Hobbiton." She wasn't sure where these words were coming from, but they sounded surprisingly good, so she kept going. "You need a burglar, a hobbit burglar like Gandalf said—one who can move quietly and won't be recognizable by smell to the dragon. Oh, and it might even help that I'm a woman, when it comes to that."

That had been the wrong thing to add. She had thought Thorin looked unwilling before, but now his face was positively stony. He shook his head. "I will not have my Company be responsible for guarding a little hobbit lass all the way to Erebor. Nor would I send her alone to rob a dragon while the Company stayed behind. Let no one say the dwarves of Erebor stoop to such dishonorable deeds."

Little hobbit lass, indeed! She'd show him what a little hobbit lass was worth. "I'm not asking you to guard me, and you were going to send Bilbo in to rob the dragon by himself, that's exactly what the contract was talking about. It's not dishonor, it's the job description."

Surveying the group of dwarves, she asked, "You need a fourteenth member, don't you?"

Some nodded. Others just watched her.

"You need a quick and quiet burglar, don't you?"

More nods.

"You probably don't want to spend another night, or multiple nights, going through the Shire till you convince another hobbit to take off into the unknown with you, do you?"

Murmurs of grudging agreement.

"Master Gandalf is willing to vouch for me, and that's all you needed to give Bilbo the contact, even though he was practically shoving it back in your face. Which I'm not."

"Is this true, Gandalf?" Thorin sounded almost accusatory. "Was this your plan all along, to give us false hope before revealing your true choice of burglar?"

Gandalf shook his head. "Bilbo was the burglar I had in mind. However, seeing as he has made his refusal quite plain, I see no reason why Amaranth's request should not at least be taken under consideration."

Brow furrowed, Thorin turned back to her. "Why do you wish to join us? This is not some easy ride across your little green hills, mistress Brandybuck. This is a trek across Middle Earth that will take months, to face a fire-breathing dragon at the end, let alone whatever dangers we may meet on the way. I cannot guarantee the safety of any in the Company, least of all one who cannot fight and has no knowledge of life in the wild. Why are you so set on this course?"

She wasn't sure how to phrase it. How to turn the words so that they would convince him, convince everyone, that she was the right person for the job. It was so easy with Uncle Polo or with Rory or with Father, but these dwarves came from a very different place, were very different people. Though she didn't think that "I want to go on an adventure" would go over very well with either hobbits or dwarves. But maybe . . .

"When I first had the idea, it was because I've always wanted to see what lies outside the Shire. To go beyond these little green hills, as you call them. And I was a little disappointed that Bilbo turned you down. But then when the music started, when you were singing about what the mountain used to be like and how the dragon drove you out, then—I saw it wasn't just about the treasure, like I'd thought before. It was about everything else the dragon stole from you, too. And, well, if I can steal anything back from him for you, it's the least I can do to help."

Thorin studied her for what felt like an hour. She didn't dare look away to see what the other dwarves thought. Finally he spoke, but not to her. "We have heard from Gandalf. Now what say the rest of you? Balin? Fili? Gloin?"

"The lassie seems a bit young ta go tramping around wi' us. I'd wager she's no much more than a bairn. I'm no certain it would be a wise investment, even if we did need a burglar, an' I don't think we do." This from a big red-headed dwarf at the table across from Thorin.

"Aye, one lightfingers in the group is plenty," added Dwalin, which raised far too many questions that Amaranth tried not to be distracted by, including why this comment visibly upset Ori, of all people. "Besides, a lass who canna protect herself is a weakness that could be used against us." Several of the older-looking dwarves nodded along.

"Then we teach her! Kili and I." Fili ignored Kili's sudden frown and elbow to his ribs. "Surely she can learn to use a knife or two, can't you, Amaranth?"

She nodded quickly—she'd agree to anything that they suggested at this point, even if she had to commence her burglary career by snitching some of Posco's shirts and trousers to wear on the trip. Which would be ridiculous and uncomfortable, but worth it.

"An excellent idea, lads. Well, that's settled then," Balin spoke up. "We all agreed that we would hire a burglar on Gandalf's recommendation, and though Mistress Brandybuck may not have been first choice, she appears to be similarly qualified, and she has a willing heart." He emphasized the last two words while looking sharply at Thorin. "I'd say we can ask no more than that, eh?"

One side of Thorin's mouth tried to twitch upward in what might be his own version of a rueful smile. "You would use my own words against me. But I suppose we have no other choice, for we must be on the road in the morning, and already the night draws on." With a sigh, he turned back to Amaranth, who was keeping very still despite the fireworks fizzing in her chest. "Mistress Brandybuck, know this: as I have said already, I can guarantee no one's safety on this quest, nor will I be held responsible for whatever fate may befall you. If you wish it, however, you may sign the contract."

Oh, she wished it all right. She wished it so much that she almost hugged Gandalf right then and there. But instead she took a deep breath, let the fireworks go off in one spectacular and completely silent explosion, and breathed out. "My deepest thanks, master Thorin. I'll do that now so that everyone can get some sleep."

Hopefully that was the appropriate way to respond.

Gandalf handed her the heavy parchment, and she made her way through the still-watching dwarves over to the shelves on one wall of the passage. There she found a quill and ink. Unfolding the contract till she found the right place, she carefully signed her name in her most formal handwriting: Amaranth Brandybuck, Buckland, The Shire.

Amaranth Brandybuck, official burglar. That had an interesting ring to it.

She handed the document to Balin for inspection, as he'd been the one carrying it in the first place. After a squint at her signature, he nodded, satisfied. "Looks to be in order. Welcome to the Company, Mistress Brandybuck."

"It's my honor, master Balin."

This seemed to settle the matter for the rest of the dwarves; Thorin told them all to get what sleep they could, as they'd be leaving in the morning. "Mistress Brandybuck, best go home and pack your things. We'll be breakfasting at the inn in Bywater so as not to presume on your cousin's hospitality longer than necessary, and there are other requisite preparations to be made as well. We will depart there at eleven; I trust that you will be punctual."

As if she was ever anything else. But she bit back the angry retorts and simply nodded. "I'll be there."

And a few moments later she found herself standing in the lane outside Bag End, basket of pie pans clutched in her hand. The deed was done. She was going on an adventure. Now she just needed to pack, and get some sleep . . . oh. Wait.

She also needed to bake at least four more berry pies, explain to Prisca and Posco and Uncle Polo why exactly she couldn't stay for the wedding on Saturday, and determine how her family would be notified.

All in about twelve hours, if she was lucky.

Maybe sleep was a little too much to hope for.


	7. Chapter 7: Home Is Behind

**I'm aliiiiiive! :D Blessings on anyone who's still around to read this**—**NaNoWriMo did kill me (though I yelled my inner perfectionist into being okay with not reaching 50k and counting it as a life lesson), and then work and grad school stepped in to make sure it took. On the plus side, this chapter is again the longest yet, a little over 3k, so please take that as a peace offering, because I've been working on it for at least a month or more. Thank you for all your support! *distributes your favorite kinds of pies***

* * *

Amaranth's mind was still whirling as she shut Uncle Posco's gate behind her as slowly as she could bear. Despite her best efforts, though, it still creaked just before she latched it, and she winced, glancing toward the darkened front windows of the smial before her. No candle flickered to light, though, and she moved silently to the door. Gently, ever so gently, she took careful hold of the knob and tugged just a little, and it swung outward easily. Still gripping her basket and hoping to the Lady that the pie pans wouldn't make any clatter, she slid inside and carefully clicked the door shut as her eyes adjusted to the lack of moonlight.

Then she turned around.

"Oh, confusticate it."

There stood Prisca, in her dressing gown and nightdress, but very much awake.

"Prisca! Whyever are you still up? You should be getting all the sleep you can." Amaranth kept her voice just above a whisper as she maneuvered herself and her basket around her cousin and made for the kitchen. "Let me just put these pans in here and then we can both go to bed. You needn't have stayed up on my account." She'd have to wait till Prisca was asleep before starting in on the pies, but she could at least gather her things while she waited.

"What did those dwarves want with you?"

Double confusticate it. She was glad Prisca, following behind her, couldn't see her face. "They were lost and needed a guide, that's all."

"Did they have anything to do with taking pies to cousin Bilbo? Or did you just happen to walk by Bag End—after escorting them in the opposite direction from the Green Dragon, mind you, so I know they weren't going there—and happen to see his party through the windows?" There was just the faintest hint of laugher in Prisca's voice. "No, that wasn't it. What was it Papa said—something about tweens in the flowerbeds and asking Bilbo for flowers, was that it? I don't suppose you have any in that basket . . ."

With a rueful sigh Amaranth set the basket on the kitchen table and turned to face Prisca. "You know me far too well. No, no flowers, no tweens, I just desperately wanted to know why they were visiting Bilbo. Now if you insist on staying up, can I impose upon the bride-to-be to wash some of her own pie pans while I fix up some new crusts?"

"I do and you may." Prisca tied an apron over her dressing gown and set to work as Amaranth measured flour and salt and butter into a wooden mixing bowl.

There was a moment of silence, and Amaranth began writing a letter home in her head as she cut in the butter. _Dear everyone, By the time you read this, I shall be embarked on an extremely Tookish endeavour for which the great wizard Gandalf and my misguided sense of curiosity are entirely to blame. I am not sure when I may return, but as our Company is traveling to the entire other side of Middle-Earth, I will almost certainly not be home this coming week as planned. Much love to you all, and if I don't come back, don't let the boys take all my hair-ribbons for fishing lures_—_those go to Asphodel and Primula._

That was sure to go over well.

"Did you find out what they wanted?" Prisca asked.

"Eventually."

"And that was—"

"Someone to go on an adventure." She remembered how guarded Fili and Kili had been about the purpose of their quest, so there must be some necessity for caution in discussing it willy-nilly.

"And they started looking at Bag End, of all places. That's the complete wrong end of the Shire, I hope Bilbo let them know!" Prisca laughed.

"Oh, he did. Even I did. Told them they should have started off in Tuckborough, or even—Buckland." Too late she knew she shouldn't have hesitated there, that was a certain giveaway, and sure enough—

"Amaranth?" The sounds of scrubbing stopped, and Prisca came around the table to face her. "Is there something you're trying to ease into? You know you needn't do that all the time. Just say it."

Amaranth upended the bowl to let the first piecrust plop onto a floured cloth. "Pass me the rolling pin?"

Prisca fetched it from its shelf but held it out of Amaranth's reach. "Tell me first."

With a sigh that sent up a puff of flour, she nodded. "I—I won't be able to stay for the wedding." Once she pushed those words out, the rest was relatively easy. "I'm sorry, I surely am, but it's not something that can wait even a few days, I don't think. If you know of someone here in Hobbiton who could help you, I will personally see them in the morning to request their assistance, and if there is anything else I can do tonight besides these pies, I will, but I have to be packed and on the road to Bywater by half-past-ten."

"Is all well at Brandy Hall?" Prisca gave her a concerned look along with the rolling pin. "Ill news from home? Or is this—this has to do with the dwarves. Oh Amaranth, you didn't. What did you do?"

"Make up your mind, cousin, did I or didn't I? No, I'm sorry, this is a poor time for jokes." She attacked the lump of piecrust and spoke as she rolled it out. "There was, well, an adventure to be had, and Gandalf was very particular about inviting a hobbit, and Bilbo turned him down so I offered to go instead."

"Not Gandalf the wandering wizard!" Prisca's eyes were round as the mixing bowl. "Papa recalls his fireworks every Midsummer's Eve—I've always wanted to see. And you'll be traveling with him and those two dwarves?"

"More dwarves than just them, but yes."

"Does your family—no, they wouldn't know, this only happened tonight. Will you be passing through Buckland on your travels, or would you like me to post a letter for you?"

Amaranth raised an eyebrow. "What, no horrified remonstrances or attempts at persuading me not to go? This really is everything I shouldn't be doing."

Prisca shrugged. "I'm mostly certain you'd just argue or laugh if I tried. Of course I can't say I'm anything like overjoyed, and I don't even want to think about how people will talk, but you're abominably hard to talk out of things. So the least I can do is help you tell your poor family that you're haring off into the wild instead of knocking some sense into me when I wake up Saturday morning in an absolute panic over marrying dear Willy."

"Here's what I'll do. When I write a letter for my family, I'll write one for you as well, and then if you do start to go off, just open it up and it'll be like I'm sitting right on your bed, shaking you by the shoulders and telling you everything will be absolutely wonderful." Amaranth went around the table to give Prisca a tight hug, feeling the tears trying to start. "And then I'll come back and you'll be happily married to young master Wilibald, and you can name your first fauntling after me as a welcome-home."

"E-even if it's a boy?" Prisca's voice was a little watery as well, despite her smile.

"You'll simply have to make sure it's a girl, I suppose." She stepped back and blew one of her curls out of her mouth. Back to business, Amaranth. Food now, tears later. "Now, I've four pies to make before dawn, if possible, so unless you want to be up to your elbows in berries, you'd best get along to bed."

"No, I'll stay." Prisca handed over two clean pie pans and set to work on the others. With her help, Amaranth soon had all four pies in the oven by just a little while after midnight. When she worried again about leaving Prisca alone for wedding preparations, her cousin quickly put her fears to rest—Posco's sweetheart Gilly Brownlock and her mother would no doubt be more than capable of managing anything that needed it.

"And you won't say why exactly I've left, will you?" Amaranth cut herself a wedge of brown bread and spread it thick with raspberry preserves. Baking was hungry work.

"Of course not! I'm sure that will spread soon enough, but I won't be the one to start it." Prisca dipped a spoon straight into the jar of preserves. "I'll just say you've been called away unexpectedly, and they shan't ask questions. The Brownlocks are good folk."

"I'm sure even the 'good folk' in Hobbiton won't be able to keep from talking when they hear I set off from the Green Dragon with a company of dwarves and Gandalf the Grey himself." Amaranth shook her head and licked the preserves from her knife. "That's bound to make it all over the Shire, I don't doubt."

"Aren't you even a little worried what they'll think?"

"I'm a Brandybuck with Took blood, we've done worse. They already think we're odd for boating on the Brandywine or wearing boots when the mud is especially bad—this won't turn but a few more heads than usual."

"I mean your reputation, Amaranth. Going on an adventure is one thing, but going on an adventure in company like that—" Prisca let her words trail off.

Oh. Bother. The one logical objection she hadn't though of. But Thorin and Gandalf hadn't either, for all the talk about honor. So. "No need to worry, it's all entirely respectable. They're not like that at all. They're—I don't know how to describe them, but—they love good food, and beautiful music, and besides Gandalf is coming with us, and he wouldn't go around with dishonorable people, would he." She didn't sound very convincing, she knew, but she also knew that the only danger she'd be in would come from outside the Company, even if she couldn't articulate why she knew it. And if people wanted to talk, well, she couldn't do anything about that.

Prisca didn't look satisfied, but she let the matter drop, and soon the pies were cooling in the pantry and Amaranth was packing her bag. She hadn't brought much to Hobbiton—a few outfits and aprons, a bedroll for sleeping along the way, her two brushes, a few other personal items. She left out the fine green dress she'd planned to wear to the wedding, not without regret—she had made it new, and it seemed a shame to leave it unworn, but she couldn't see any use for finery on the journey ahead of her. Her sewing kit, however, was an absolute necessity . . .

By the time she had culled through her things, the little clock in the hall had chimed two in the morning, and she didn't even bother changing into her nightdress before falling into bed.

She woke to Prisca shaking her frantically as the clock chimed ten. "Hurry, it's nearly time!"

Exactly twenty-seven minutes later, she'd scribbled out a letter to her family and the promised wedding-day note for Prisca, haphazardly brushed all her hair, jammed a few last-minute additions into her bag, slung it and her bedroll over her shoulders, and received hugs and some bread and cheese for breakfast from Prisca and a confused Uncle Polo.

She paused on the doorstep and turned, feeling the sunlight warm on her shoulders. Prisca smiled at her a little sadly, and Amaranth found herself stumbling for words, torn between her family and the road calling her name. It was time. She was really doing this. Taking her first step toward the rest of Middle Earth. And they were letting her.

She gave both of them one last hug and blurted out, "I hope the wedding goes off splendidly!"

Then before she could second-guess herself, she was off, racing down the road to Bywater.

It was only a mile or so, but she wanted to arrive before the time Thorin had given for departure—if he wanted to leave at eleven, by the Lady, she'd be ready to leave by quarter till! So she kept up as good a pace as she could manage under her load and didn't stop for anything, beast or hobbit. If anyone she sped past gave her strange looks or called after her, she didn't notice.

She slowed to a more sedate pace just before she came in sight of the Green Dragon and tried to brush most of the dust off her hem as she walked. It wouldn't do to show up looking a complete hoyden. Forcing her breathing under control (she really didn't run much, did she, this was terrible shape for a burglar to be in), she strolled into the courtyard before the inn.

It was full of ponies.

(And hobbits clearly gathered to stare at the ponies' eventual riders, but mostly ponies.)

Well, probably only fifteen or so, but she'd never seen so many in one place before. Was she going to get to ride one? Twin springs of excitement and dread bubbled up inside her. Sure, this was an adventure, but they were just so big—even the smallest pony was a head taller than her! How was she supposed to get on, let alone tell the beast where she wanted it to go?

"Ah, there you are, Amaranth!" a familiar voice shouted from the inn door. Fili waved over the ponies' heads. "Won't you come join us?"

She made her way across the courtyard, studiously ignoring everyone's stares, and arrived safely at Fili's side. He gestured for her to precede him inside, and she stepped cautiously into the sunlit common room, which was just as full of dwarves as the courtyard was of their mounts. They had pushed most of the tables together to form one large seating area, and everyone was indeed seated. There also seemed to be no eggs, forks, or crockery flying through the air, so the few hobbits daring enough to peer through the windows or hover just inside the doorway were at least not receiving a horrible first impression of the Company, thank the Lady. She saw no sign of Gandalf anywhere.

Most of the dwarves didn't notice her at first, too busy wiping down their plates with what was left of brown barley rolls, but Kili was sitting nearest the door and looked up as they entered. Lifting his tankard in greeting, he called out, "Ho there, Amaranth, a good morning to you! Not having any second thoughts?"

"Of course not!" She could feel how broad her instant smile was—just being with the Company again was exciting, even if some of them were ignoring her completely (Gloin and Dwalin in particular) and some were staring in poorly concealed surprise. At least Kili and Fili were happy to see her.

Thorin, of course, showed no trace of emotion as he drained his own tankard and rose from his seat. The other dwarves' conversations quieted, and all eyes turned to him as he greeted her. "Good morning, Mistress Brandybuck. Is that all your belongings?"

Her smile died instantly. "Yes sir. Is it too much?" She'd worried that maybe she should have left something out—did she really need the aprons, for instance? Would he make her repack? Was "sir" even the right title to use?

He shook his head. "It is adequate; you will not overburden the ponies. Kili, Fili, help her with her things. We will be leaving momentarily."

Kili bounded to his feet and joined Amaranth and Fili almost before his uncle had finished speaking. "Right then, shall we be off?"

She followed them back outside, and they led her to a brown pony with a splash of white down the middle of its face. "Do you do much riding?" Fili asked as she cautiously reached out to touch the pony's side.

"No, as a rule we hobbits prefer to walk for most things. Though we do keep ponies for plowing, or pulling carts." The pony's hair was soft under her fingers. "What's this one's name?"

"Don't know if she has one." Kili shrugged. "We bought a couple of new ones when Gandalf said we'd be picking up a burglar, and we've just been using them for carrying supplies. Want to name her?"

"I'll think on it. Naming is a serious business."

"Here, let's get your things tied on," Fili offered, and she handed him her bag and bedroll willingly enough. The sweat that had collected on her back instantly chilled in the April air, and she rolled her shoulders back and forth, relieved to be free of the weight.

"Speaking of names, yours is far too long," Kili declared with a grin.

Without looking, Fili reached behind him and hit Kili in the shoulder. "I apologize for my brother, Amaranth. Sometimes I fear he's forgotten everything Mother tried to teach us."

"Only sometimes?" She raised an eyebrow, and both brothers laughed.

"That's it, we're keeping you." Kili tried to sling his arm around her shoulders, but she was stepping toward the horse to see exactly what Fili was doing with all those straps, and he missed. "Really, though, we can't go around calling out 'Aaa-maaa-raaanth' every time we want to get your attention. What if some wild beast or, or big hairy troll is trying to sneak up on you? By the time we got to the end of your name, you'd be a goner!"

"You really need to have more faith in how quickly you can talk," she tossed over her shoulder. Fili snorted as he pulled the last buckle tight.

"There you are, everything should be secured." He patted the horse's side, calming her as the other dwarves came pouring out into the courtyard. "You can practice tonight. Come along, Kili, we'd best mount up."

"I'm not letting this go," Kili promised as he made off for his own horse. "It's a matter of the safety of our very important burglar."

Important? She'd never been called that before. A funny warm sort of feeling joined the excitement and dread from earlier (though the dread by now was all but vanished), and she rather liked it.

Of course, that was before she heard the watching folk of Bywater (and probably a few from up the Hill) start murmuring about burglars and Brandybucks. There went that chicken out of the coop.

With the help of a handy bench and a few false starts, she managed to pull herself up onto the pony's back. Rearranging her skirts and feeling glad it was cool enough that she'd packed longer ones, she looked around and realized she was last to mount. All the dwarves were already up, and Thorin was leading them toward the road.

Fortunately, her pony knew enough to follow the others, because Amaranth had no idea how to make her start walking on her own. Unfortunately, she only just had time to be happy about this before they were all stopping again, and her pony bumped into the back end of—Ori's, was it?—before halting.

And the reason they were stopping?

Was a very familiar figure running helter-skelter down the same road she'd run, and waving a very familiar sheet of parchment.

"Wait! Wait! I've signed it!" called out cousin Bilbo.


End file.
